Does the conclusion hold for overweight people? While I was sub-80kg my sneakers used to last years. Once I passed the 100kg threshold I noticed my sneakers get worn-out after ~6 months, just walking. Makes me afraid the same happens to my knees.

Is there any distinction made between trail and road runs?

I don't know how you can claim that running on hard pavement is good for the body, with comparable cardio as a control.

I strongly doubt that this control model is correct if the recommended adjustment is to discard the association between e.g. patellar tendinitis and patellofemoral pain syndrome and running surface hardness. Still, the guidelines should be to avoid road runs because they certainly exacerbate symptoms of such injuries or disorders.

Been running sans shoes for 12 years or so, (early 40s). Before that, I started with Vibram FFs for a year. Can't for the life of me, ever imagine wanting to run with shoes on, again.

Seems apparent to me that shoes vastly alter the mechanics of a step. Just try sprinting at full speed for 20 meters or so, maybe indoors or something, if the pavement is intimidating. You might notice it feels very different. Much easier on the joints.

I say sprint because I imagine that would reinforce the instinct to ball-strike right off the bat. At least it was that way for me.

All that said, apparently some people still heel-strike without shoes and have to unlearn doing so. Also, trying to force ball-strikes with raised-heel shoes, when I was in my mid 20s, gave me terrible shin pain.

I also found the lack of a jolt from ball-striking, makes for easier breathing.

It may be intimidating at first, there are lots of little foot/ankle muscles that take time to get built, not to mention calluses that are like pads, but it certainly feels easier on the joints.

FWIW, I've had a bum knee ever since being pushed to the ground in gr4 so the fact it's no worse for wear should count for something. Of course my word alone means nothing though. Maybe take Harvard's.

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dlieberman/files/2012c.pdf

Anyway, I wonder if the running-knee-scare from yesteryear was because of a difference in shoe design.

Edited to add:

Oh yeah, I also want to add that barefoot running makes a MASSIVE difference in preventing ankle-roll injuries. For some reason I got really prone to rolling in my early/mid 20s or so. After running barefoot, it pretty much stopped outright.

The one or two times I did ankle-roll, (YAY work boots), I just shrugged it off and continued on, feeling nothing about 20 min later. This vs getting all swollen and not being able to walk for a week.

I'm pretty sure I've never rolled without shoes on. It's another one of those things that kind of seems evident. That is, that the mechanics of shoes hinder your ability to prevent rolling.

With shoes, you kind of lose the ability to deliberately pronate the ankle/heel, to micro-adjust balance, while keeping the ball and toes firmly planted to the ground. It seems to me, this is because the shoe heels are flat where our own heels are rounded. Also shoes are usually pretty stiff while feet can twist a little bit.

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